Turns out we've seen that hilarious viral upside-down painting before

Characters from Arthur look at a Mondrian artwork that was hung upside down
(Image credit: PBS)

Children's TV can sometimes be wonderfully on point. The discovery that galleries have been displaying a Mondrian masterpiece upside down for decades was amusing in itself. But it's become even funnier now that people are noticing that a children's cartoon predicted the gaffe more than twenty years ago.

It turns out that Piet Mondrian's 1941 New York City I has probably always been hanging the wrong way up. Worse still, it seems it's now too late to fix the mistake because curators fear that moving the work would damage it. But perhaps all this could have been fixed years ago if the experts had watched an episode of Arthur (if you're a budding artist yourself, see our pick of the best art supplies).

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Joe Foley

Joe is a regular freelance journalist and editor at Creative Bloq. He writes news, features and buying guides and keeps track of the best equipment and software for creatives, from video editing programs to monitors and accessories. A veteran news writer and photographer, he now works as a project manager at the London and Buenos Aires-based design, production and branding agency Hermana Creatives. There he manages a team of designers, photographers and video editors who specialise in producing visual content and design assets for the hospitality sector. He also dances Argentine tango.

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